Weekend Open Thread: Happy Halloween!

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Happy (almost) Halloween! This year, I’m afraid I’ll be sitting Halloween out with a sick three-week-old. Originally, I’d had visions of dressing up Jackson as a Tootsie Roll or something equally adorable, but not only is he too small for pretty much any costume, he’s still miserable with a cold. So, I will have to just reminisce of Halloweens past as I squirt saline drops up the baby’s nose and try to squeeze in a short nap here and there when I can get it.

The photo above was taken on one of my favorite past Halloweens. I was 23, still living in Missouri, and visiting my bestie in Chicago (he’s the one in the blue wig). I loved my costume that year. I was dressed in all silver with a star-shaped piece of cardboard covered in tinfoil tied to my back with silver rope. I held a water gun and when anyone asked what I was, I pointed the gun at them and said, “A shooting star!” It was a little more creative than the three consecutive years I was a brothel owner, anyway.

So! What are your Halloween plans? Are you dressing up? What has been your favorite costume to date? And what was always your favorite candy in your trick-or-treat bag? I, of course, loved Tootsie Rolls, candy corn, and any miniature candy bars (especially Three Musketeers), though it was always a buzzkill when my mom made me break the candy in half “in case some crazy put a razor in it.”

My first trick or treating experience was when I was 8, when I still lived in Spain. My sister had moved to the U.S. for college, and she mailed me a costume (a witch?) and one of those pumpkins for candy collection. My folks called their friends and explained trick or treating to them, and then drove me around to their (not close) houses for a couple of hours where they gave me candy they had bought for the occasion. It was a good night.

My favorite costume ever was one I wore when I was 6 or so… my stepfather was a hunter, so he had lots of animal skins, etc, and I decided to dress up like a deer! I wore a grey leotard and grey tights, painted my nose black, and my mom fashioned me a cape from a tanned hide of a white tail deer (tail included) and fashioned me a headpiece with real antlers from the same white tail deer. Everyone else thought it was disgusting, but I effing loved it!

As for this year, I’m not going out or dressing up. This week, I broke up with my boyfriend AND my best friend got into a rather serious car accident, so we’re both going to stay in, be mopey, and watch scary movies together.

My favorite costume was a few years ago when I dressed as Raining Cats and Dogs. I wore the stereotypical yellow rain coat and hat, and had sewed and glued various buttons and stuffed cats and dogs to them.

I haven’t figured out a costume for this year yet. So super last minute, but I’ve been really stressed out and broke this month. I’ve got a party and a show to go to both tonight and tomorrow night – it’s tradition for local bands to dress up as classic bands and do cover shows for Halloween here, which is always a good time!

i’m not really a halloween person. i love handing candy out but i haven’t dressed up since i was in college. even then i was never really in to it. i’ve always loved laffy taffy and the fruity tootsie rolls. nobody ever liked the fruit tootsie rolls so when we would go to halloween parties as kids i always had an easy trade! 🙂

this year i’m excited to finally live in a semi-city and at home so i might actually have trick or treaters! i grew up on 5 acres so we never had any growing up and since i moved away i’ve either been at parties or out of town for halloween every year. this year i’ll be home just waiting to pass out candy!

we’re also doing a walk this weekend to raise money for the local animal shelter. i promised my dogs i’d never be one of those people who dressed their animals up so they will each have a bandana and that’s it! i’m not sure either one would tolerate a costume well either…

Oh my god, I am TOTALLY a fruity Tootsie Rolls fan! The secretary at my school keeps them in a bowl on her desk, and if I don’t keep a handle on myself, I can eat half the bowl while I’m standing there talking to her!

No plans this year – just going to mope around the house. I just got a “it’s not you, it’s me” from the only friend I had so I’m feeling pretty down. With all the holidays coming up I am starting to worry about how I’m going to cope. Thankfully I have my mom and three precious dogs who are always happy to be by my side.

My favorite Halloween candies are anything Reese’s and Almond Joy’s. My favorite candy bar ever is 5th Avenue but I hardly ever see those being given away on Halloween. As for my favorite costume, I dressed up as Punky Brewster and had a blast. Guys didn’t pick up on it but I got stopped by so many girls. Not too difficult of a costume to put together – the more home made the better. I do want to be Scarlett from Gone With The Wind someday but in that lovely white dress of hers. Someday!

Sorry to hear that you are having a tough go of things right now… but I am sure there are many people on here (like me!) that would be willing to listen if you want to vent! I don’t know anything about your situation, but I think that maybe you have more people that care than you think you do. Here’s to better days!!!

Though I’ve read Dear Wendy for a while, I’ve not commented until now because I can’t resist poking fun at myself…

I can’t say that I have a favorite costume from years past (not really a holiday person… kind of a Grinch for EVERYTHING really) I am going to enjoy this year. I have a daughter who just turned 6 and of course she wants to go trick or treating. My husband has been making fun of me in the past few months because I am 8 months and some change pregnant. Therefore, I am going as a penguin and my daughter is going as a polar bear complete with “bucket of fish” to collect candy. And the costumes are home made. Go Hanes sweats!

Unfortunately, I have no Halloween plans this year. I am broke, can’t even afford a costume, and don’t have anywhere to go even if I could. As for my favorite Halloween costume ever, last year I was Marilyn Monroe. I had the white dress and the bleach-blonde wig, which was kinda funny on me because of my brown eyebrows.

Ya’ll have such cute stories. I broke my foot 10 years ago in what I refer to as a “freak trick or treating accident”. We had just moved to Colorado from TX. Our part of TX is flat; CO is not. My son always wore his roller blades when we went, so I said OK. Well, within 5 minutes we realized it was a bad idea – too many hills and these crazy houses have porches with steps. Anyhoo, on our way home I was exhausted from having to pull him, push him, help him all evening and I may not have been paying all that good of attention. We were crossing a huge intersection on a green light & as we were going accross, it appeared this crazy evil white truck wasn’t going to stop at their red light. Hmmm what to do, what to do. Well, I decide to start running thereby meeting my fate even faster, however, my son chose to stop & plant his roller blade sideways so he wouldn’t roll into the truck. Foot against roller blade – foot did not win. I still cringe every Halloween when I take my grand daughter out – and no, she does not wear roller blades.

I have two favorite costumes that were a pair costume with my BFF from college. One year she and I went as ketchup and mustard. I wore all red and she wore all yellow and we used poster board and sharpies to copy the Heinz Ketchup and French’s Mustard labels. I even wore a paper choker that matched the label that goes around the neck of the Heinz bottle!

Another year she and I went as a fork and knife (a butter knife specifically, haha), also made out of poster board and sharpies. My favorite moment of the night was when someone asked us “Hey cutlery, where is the spoon?!” 🙂

My best friend turns 24 tomorrow, perfectly timed for a Halloween bar crawl in downtown D.C. I’m going to be boring and be a pirate. I have a red velvet-ish jacket with lace sleeves, and it barely covers my ass (it’s a “sexy” pirate jacket). So I’m wearing a formfitting black dress underneath, tights and my brown snow boots – because it’s supposed to SNOW apparently??! Better drink a few more cocktails so I can’t feel it on the walk back!

One of my favorite halloweens ever was two years ago. My 3 roommates and I, it was our senior year of college, dressed up as characters from Batman. I was Poison Ivy, and wore a dark green lacy dress (more like lingerie, but hey, it was college), a bright red wavy wig, red lacy sleeve things, bright green tights, carried a long ivy garland around my neck, and put ivy leaves on my face and in my wig. We looked so awesome as a group, and it was one of the most memorable nights of college. Sigh.

*laugh* I’ve gone as many different characters for Halloween. Lately though, I get as much use as I can out of my 16th century Celtic dress. This year I am coloring my hair, and adding extensions (colored).

My favorite costume as kid was my black cat outfit–black turtleneck and pants, a tail my mom sewed for me, white mittens (I had little white paws) and a half-mask. I was so excited to go trick-or-treating in it, but I got food poisoning from dinner the night before. I still refuse to eat fried catfish–it wrecked my halloween!

I usually come up with costumes based on what I own and how I look. Velma from Scooby-Doo is a standby, and when I was blonde I went as Luna Lovegood one year. My best costume as an adult was probably Medusa. I wore a black grim reaper type robe, put on white make-up with red around the eyes and black lipstick, and tied fake fishing worms all through my hair. Not exactly a sexy costume, but it was fun to look that scary!

My all-time favorite candy was Sixlets–I’d trade my friends almost anything for theirs at the end of the night. I probably loved them because they tasted a little like Whoppers, which I loved but couldn’t eat. I also have a serious weakness for Kit-Kats.

I´ve never lived in a place that really celebrates halloween, I do come from a family that has alwaysenjoyed costume parties though. One of the most memorable was a “T party”, where you had to dress up as something beginning with T, I wore a long fancy dress, with money hanging out of a purse, in my hair, etc (I was a “trillionaire”) other memorable costumes from that party were tiny tot, top model, teetotaller, tooth fairy and tequila drinker.
My nearly 4y.o. thanks to Disney Junior loves halloween, last year we were going out when she remembered the day so came running inside to put on a ballerina costume and fairy wings. This year she asked my mum to make her a ghost costume about a month ago, this week a friend from kindy invited her to a halloween party, but we got back a few hours ago from the Dr. and she has scarlet fever 🙁

My favorite childhood costume was a purple sparkly unicorn my grandmother made for me. It was awesome. I’ve saved it for 20 years and am one day going to force my not yet conceived daughter to wear it 🙂

Two years ago my BF and I dressed up as a bottle of ketchup and a hot dog. It was freakin awesome. I’m not dressing up this year, but I’m ok with it. I am going to buy candy for the trick-or-treaters that won’t be coming to my apartment. I’m pumped for some flavored Tootsie Rolls, yum!!

My favorite Halloween costume was when I was about five. I was a princess, and my mom made me a princess outfit- pink and white with puffed sleeves and gold rick-rack! I loved the bejeesus out of that dress.

My dad was working with someone who was a former Ms. Tennessee and told her about his little girl who refused to take off her princess outfit (even though it wasn’t even Halloween yet) She thought it was adorable, so she loaned me her crown for Halloween night! It was the most amaaaazing costume!

I LOVE Halloween! This year I decided I’m going to be Nancy Botwin from “Weeds.” Prison jumpsuit, iced latte cup, and a babydoll with baggies of green tea hanging out of the diaper. My best friend and I will be watching scary movies over a bottle of wine while we hand out candy, and then we’re hitting up a bar with some friends.

My all-time favorite Halloween costume was my junior year of high school. My theatre class had done a music video project a few weeks earlier, and my group did our video to “Spam” by Save Ferris. I volunteered to be the giant dancing can of Spam, and then when Halloween rolled around, I wore that to our football game (on Halloween) and to a party after. Perfect strangers were coming up and taking pictures with me, it was hilarious. Last year’s wasn’t bad either – Rosie the Riveter, complete with pinup girl hair and makeup. Very fun!

I love all of these stories! I have one leg, so I’ve been Cherry Darling going on about five years in a row. Because who is a more legit Cherry Darling than me? I have a fake machine gun strapped to me and everything. Although, it always gets a bit cumbersome after dancing all night and a few beers, so I tend to take off the machine gun after a few hours and then just look like a scantily-clad me. I guess I should retire Cherry Darling at some point 🙁 When I was little, I was Punky Brewster one year and that was so much fun!

This year my husband is going as Napoleon Dynamite and I am going to be Deb! I’m pretty stoked to rock a side ponytail. I made a cover for my drinking glass that says “1% milk.” We made jello shots last night and I’m all ready to dance all night!

Some of my favorite costumes are not mine but my husband’s and daughter’s. One year we decided to dress up last minute and my husband and I came up with a great idea for him to be half man, half women. It was awesome. I had a button down dress that I cut and left the buttons and made quick button holes in one of his old shirts and he wore a pair of shorts. He wore one tennis shoe and one of my high hills (the kind you slip on since his foot is bigger than mine) then put a bow on one side of his head and make-up on the same side. The best part is he had a goatee (Sp?) and he shaved half of it off for the women side! It was great.

Last year my youngest daughter went as a present in a cardboard box that was wrapped and a giant bow on her head. Soo cute. Neither of my girls are dressing up this year – they want to stay home and pass out candy. Kind of makes me sad 🙁

My favorite Halloween costume I wore was when I was around 10-11 or so and I dressed as a punk rocker – crazy colored hair, crazy make-up, short mini skirt with wacky tights and high heels that didn’t fit and a cute tank – no coat and it was one of the coldest halloweens ever of course. Favorite candy is baby ruth and butterfinger.

This is my favorite holiday and favorite time of year…I love fall!
Hope everyone has a safe and fun halloween 🙂

I’ve never gotten that into Halloween, but my best friend has had some awesome costumes the past couple years. Last year she went as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She bought a cheap pantsuit from Saver’s as well as a white dress shirt and a fedora, and she took a scissors to the lefthand side of the clothes so they look all look tattered. On the lefthand side of her face she smudged some makeup on to look grubby. She also carried an Orangina bottle with water dyed green with food coloring. The year before she was Abby from NCIS (the Goth forensic scientist) and donned a plaid mini skirt and black shirt, bought some HUGE platform black boots, dyed her hair black and put it in pigtails, and borrowed a lab coat from her roommate.

Part of my life would be complete if my boyfriend ever agreed to go with me as Wesley from Princess Bride (I’d be Buttercup), Indiana Jones (I’d be Marian), or Robin Hood (I’d be Marian). Or all the above. He said he would comply if I ever went as Zelda to go with his Link costume from the Legend of Zelda — yes, he is a video game nerd.

My most memorable Halloween as a child was my 2nd grade year, and I was sick as a dog. I was so depressed because I had a fabulous french maid costume and now I wasn’t going to get to wear it! But my parents felt so bad that they went out and bought a bunch of candy and all of the holiday Charlie Brown movies. We watched them all, starting with The Great Pumpkin, obviously. So I dressed up in my french maid costume just to answer the door and give out candy to the trick-or-treaters.

Since then, I’ve done not one but two variations of “80’s chick.” It’s mostly because I look FAB with my huge curly mane whisked into a side-ponytail and my big perfect-for-heavy-eyeshadow eyes covered in shades of blue. I also used one of those outfits for my 19th birthday party, which was 80s themed. No, I’m not obsessed at all! *looks around to make sure no one is around to catch me listening to Blondie or The Bangles*

OMG, I was totally gonna be Doctor Who this year!! But I couldn’t find a fez in time (fezzes are cool.). I was also thinking about being a sexy tardis, but everyone would’ve made jokes about me being bigger on the inside :/.

“Even though Best first published his findings more than 20 years ago, the fear persists today, with nary a single razor blade in an apple to be found.

“I think an urban legend is harder to kill than a vampire,” Best said.

The best-known case of Halloween candy tampering came in 1974, when Texas dad Ronald Clark O’Bryan killed his son by lacing his Pixy Stix with cyanide to claim $20,000 in life insurance. Before that, a Detroit 5-year-old died in 1970 after eating heroin supposedly hidden in his Halloween candy. It turned out the boy had simply gotten into his uncle’s stash.

Aside from those cases, no child has been poisoned or seriously injured by Halloween candy received from strangers, Best said. In most reports, it turns out to be the kid himself doing it to get attention.”

isnt that funny? i read about that on cracked.com on an article that was titled 6 things that one person ruined for the rest of us… and this entry ended with something like, so if you ever find some poison or razors in your halloween candy, it was probably your own parents… lol so funny

My favorite Halloween costume was when I wore my high school cheerleading uniform 10 years after I had graduated. Not particularly creative, but I was damn happy to fit into that sucker!

This year I was aching to go as Natalie Portman’s character from Black Swan, I even have most of the gear already from many years spent doing ballet. But I couldn’t really justify any minor expense toward completing the costume, since I’m a broke student, plus I didn’t have anywhere worth wearing it to go. So my boyfriend and his roommate and I spent last evening carving some really bad ass pumpkins and watching Carrie.

Really late on this one, but thats because I had an awesome Halloween party this weekend 🙂 I always go all out with decorating my house (I have a dungeon and a slaughter/autopsy room) and throw a big party. This year I dressed as Super Grover and must say its one of my favorite costumes. Not only was it adorable, but I was also nice and warm when everyone else was cold 🙂

Didn’t have any parties this weekend, but may do something today. Currently dressed in the office as a devil (red/black outfit and a pair of devil horns for quick transition). My husband and I may go out tonight and hit a halloween party/art fundraiser in town. We might also stay in – depends on how we feel. I know that no matter what happens, hitting Mass for All Saints Day tomorrow is on the agenda.

This year, my husband dressed up as Dangle from Reno 911. Little shorts and all! It was great. I went as a convict to complete the theme. Everyone at the Halloween party we went to couldn’t believe that my husband would wear shorts that short. I couldn’t believe it either but it was hilarious, even if you’ve never watched the show.

As for candy, my favorite is peanut butter cups! My poor kids know how much I love them so they hand them right to me when they get them instead of putting them in their pumpkins.

I LOVE HALLOWEEN! My favorite costumes have been from the past few years. My SO and I do the whole silly partner costumes. Last year we were a fly and flypaper. The year before a dalmation and a fire hydrant. This year, we are going to a themed party and we have to be superheroes or super villians…so we are going as “past out prime” Catwoman (him) and Batman (me). It shoudl be a blast!

Every year I make my sons costume. His mummy costume last year was THE best. This year it was a dead pirate, so it was WAY too easy. 🙂